Maybe you aren’t sure what complaining is.

If you came over from Encouragement for Today, welcome! I’m so thankful you are here. We are in the midst of an amazing #livingalifeofthankyou series. Come on in. Make yourself at home. I can’t wait to get to know you better. ~ Suzie

One day I’m going to bungee cord.

I’m going to let them strap me in and I’ll step off. I’ll swoop down like a bird, and then boomerang back up.

It’s on my bucket list and I’ll post pictures when it happens. Maybe some of you will be with me, and we’ll do it together.

As exciting as this sounds, I don’t want the same experience in my faith. I don’t want to feel like I’m stepping off a ledge, only to plummet and then swoop back up, and yet that can happen.

A good day = up.

On a good day, God is good. On a good day, I am good. On a good day, life is working out like I hoped and so God must be in control.

I don’t know about you, but this is changing me.

God is doing a deeper work in my life through this 21-day adventure. Two years ago, when it was just me and God doing this, he taught me the power of living a life of thank you.

This time he’s teaching me the joy of it.

The other night Richard and I were talking about a tough couple of days that he had in his job. Even as he shared, the Holy Spirit showed us the good tucked in those tough days. What might have been a heavy conversation somehow ended in gratitude.

All this week we are going to talk about things that get in the way of living a life of thank you.

My problem used to be that I forgot to look for the good tucked in the hard places.

I used to struggle with taking a compliment.

Another might tell me that she loved how a shirt looked, and I’d say, “Don’t you love how it covers up my muffin top?”

Some might say that I was being self effacing. Humorous. Humble. I wasn’t any of those things. I simply didn’t know how to accept a compliment.

There’s a lot of reasons that can happen. We don’t believe it. We don’t want to be vain. Regardless of the reason, we need to listen to ourselves.

My inability to say a simple thank you to a sincere compliment sent a message to my two beautiful daughters. I bounced back their kindness with a negative. I sent a message that if things aren’t perfect, you can’t accept a compliment.

My daughters didn’t let me get away with it. In fact, they let me know it was kind of rude.

I stopped him as he went out the door.

I saw on Facebook that he is graduating with his Masters. He’s in his mid-thirties. It’s his second full degree. He was a doctor in his home country. He came here and had to start over. He lost a lot in the process. But not his faith, or his immediate family.

He fell in love with Jesus when he lived in his former homeland. That was a crime. When he arrived in the U.S., he prayed for two things. One, to start fresh and finish a second degree.

Two, that his wife would become a believer. She was disillusioned by the view of religion she received in her home country, declaring that she was now an atheist. [Read more…]